Kinloch Golf Club - Virginia, U.S.A.

Kinloch Golf Club, or "By the Lake," is a private club that opened in April 2001 twelve miles northwest of Richmond. The centerpiece of the course is the 70­acre lake, which is also home to a fishing club. The lake was built by Richmond real estate developer C.B. Robertson, who showed the property to Marvin "Vinny" Giles, the 1972 U.S. Amateur Champion who is now an agent representing a number of Tour players. Giles persuaded Robertson that they should create an exceptional course, and they proceeded to work with Richmond-based course architect Lester George. Kinloch is routed through forests of pines, fruit trees, and dogwoods, and the construction crew was given leaf packages to enable them to identify and preserve specimen flowering trees during clearing. Most of the holes on the back nine skirt the lake, which is overlooked by the Tudor-style clubhouse with its steeply pitched, oversized roof.

Royal New Kent - Virginia, U.S.A.

Royal New Kent, located in New Kent County, is an interesting fusion of links golf with the modern sculpted style of Mike Strantz, who headed several projects for Tom Fazio before embarking on a solo design career. The course is in the town of Providence Forge, named for a forge that was destroyed in the Revolutionary War and one of the earliest settlements in New Kent County, but takes its inspiration from Royal County Down and Ballybunion in Ireland. Strantz created the stone walls that run through the course. While it bears only a distant resemblance to its Irish cousins, Royal New Kent is an altogether striking design in its own right, with the fairways nestled in big, sinewy coils and humps of land. Strantz used shaggy red and brown fescue grasses to demarcate the roiling mounds and added 134 plunging bunkers, many with fringed edges that recall the "eyebrow" bunkers of Royal County Down. The back tees at 7,291 yards are named Invicta, the Latin word for "unconquerable."